The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

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Almost all leaders say they want to empower their people. Almost everyone says they want to be empowered. The linkage should be easy. But it rarely is. The issue is different views of what empowerment really means. The way forward is in careful management of accountability hand-offs from both sides: the person passing the accountability and the person receiving it.

There’s a natural progression. In smaller organizations, people do whatever it takes to get things done regardless of their assigned role.

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Then organizations grow to the point where people can specialize and focus. At this point organizations need people to coordinate workflows across specialists (or even silos). These coordinators help the doers clarify their roles and linkages between roles so the organization as a whole can be more productive than can individuals on their own.

The tricky part comes when an organization grows to the point where the coordinators need coordinating. As these higher-level managers become further and further removed from the real work, they focus more and more on internal decision-making and people management and less and less on the organization’s customers.

It’s at this point when people start introducing tools like RACI to help clarify who is responsible, accountable, consulted and informed on work streams. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this. The trouble comes when the hand-offs are not clean.